HAVANA ,Jan. 16th An American team of academics is racing to preserve millions of Cuban historical documents before they are lost to the elements and poor storage conditions.
Many of the documents shed light on the slave Read more
HAVANA ,Jan. 16th An American team of academics is racing to preserve millions of Cuban historical documents before they are lost to the elements and poor storage conditions.
Many of the documents shed light on the slave Read more
HAVANA, Jan. 16th White House deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes is headed to Cuba to finalize an agreement governing joint law enforcement efforts Read more
HAVANA, Jan. 14th The famous Green peace ship Rainbow Warrior arrived in the Havana harbor yesterday after noon.
Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrior, arrived in Cuba for the first Read more
HAVANA, Jan, 14th If Cuba is on your cruise To Do list, your options have just opened up considerably.
Last month two of the world’s biggest cruise companies were given approval to sail to Cuba by the government. Read more
HAVANA, Jan. 14th (Reuters) The head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce met with Cuban President Raul Castro and in separate meetings with members of Castro’s economic Read more
HAVANA, Jan. 13th Cuba is famous for many things. Rum. Cars. Cigars. Che. Food isn’t one of them.
Aside from the staples (every Cuban citizen receives a regular supply of rice, sugar, coffee, meat, eggs and bread), food supplies are often limited and can run out without warning. Partly due to this, many meals are based around meat or fish with rice and beans as filler.
Traveling the world as a vegetarian, Cuba was the country I thought would prove hardest to eat well in — or even moderately well. Its vegetarian food has a reputation for being either “completely uninspired” or “uniformly terrible” — but is the vegetarian food in Cuba really so bad?
In a word, no. Definitely not. But I wouldn’t call it great, either. Let’s explore.
HAVANA
The first stop in Cuba is usually Habana Vieja, or Old Havana. As the vibrant and historic hub of the city, Old Havana is known for its striking colonial beauty, art galleries and museums, and countless restaurants offering authentic and traditional Cuban meals. In Habana Vieja, this almost always means meat or fish.
Restaurant staff linger outside their establishments, trying to draw you in by tapping their menus and describing their dishes with an almost feverish passion. Mention you’re vegetarian, however, and even the most enthusiastic waiters usually give up. Sometimes they’ll try to act as though the rice and beans accompanying the meat are the real draw of the meal, but usually the response is just defeated disappointment. I actually started to feel quite bad for them.
After bypassing many restaurants without a vegetarian main course, I wandered into O’Reilly 304. A tiny, trendy restaurant specialising in gin cocktails and contemporary Cuban cuisine that’s unassumingly sandwiched between two shabby buildings on the outskirts of Habana Vieja, it’s easy to walk past altogether. But it’s clear from first entry that here is something quite different.
Framed glowing reviews from the Miami Herald hang proudly on the walls, cool bartenders shake up incredible-looking cocktails, and the menu offers several meat-free plates. From pumpkin soup with Cuban blue cheese and cilantro to soft veggie tacos stuffed with beans and seasonal vegetables, O’Reilly 304 reflects the developing restaurant scene in Cuba.
One thing I discovered at O’Reilly 304 is that Cubans love bruschetta. It’s on the menu at any half-decent restaurant, and O’Reilly 304 is no exception. But Cuban bruschetta is a little different than what may strike you as familiar.
The onion is sweet, and spring onion and chives usually make an appearance, too. Also unlike traditional bruschetta, the onion outweighs the tomato in quantity, and an added splash of vinegar makes for an unusually sweet yet tangy appetizer. Cuban bread isn’t good, but when it’s lightly toasted and doused in oil, garlic and vinegar, it’s great.
The quality of food at O’Reilly 304 is excellent. The banana chips come served with the most delicious dipping sauce I’ve ever had — so good that I embarrassed myself trying to wipe up every last drop of it and had to write down every discernible ingredient to try to replicate it later (it definitely contained ginger, chili, sugar, coriander, onion, garlic and vinegar).
TRINIDAD
The food choices picked up, unexpectedly, in Trinidad, a UNESCO World Heritage Site at the foot of the Escambray Mountains. Walking through this beautiful town, with its cobbled streets and perfectly preserved colonial buildings, really is like stepping back in time. The prospect of getting any good vegetarian food in a town that wasn’t even connected to the rest of Cuba until the 1950s didn’t seem too realistic. But I was wrong.
At Giroud, a bizarrely cool place where you sit on old TV sets and beer crates and chairs hang upside down from walls, there was a whole variety of meat-free, tapas-style dishes: stuffed peppers and tomatoes packed with cheese and sautéed vegetables, pumpkin cream, vegetable bruschetta, diced pumpkin with onion and herbs, and cooling gazpacho. Serving beautiful and great-tasting dishes, Giroud is another example of Cuba’s emerging avant-garde food scene.
The standout in Trinidad for me was Taberna La Botija, a lively 24-hour restaurant where the country’s Spanish and Latin influences seamlessly merge with traditional Cuban cuisine. The sweet corn fritters, served with a creamy garlic dip with a hint of dill, were lovely, but the fried Cuban cheese balls were incredible. I had two portions, one right after the other.
While I would never cite Cuba’s food as one of the reasons to return, in the face of its rapidly developing gastronomic scene, its reputation for truly terrible vegetarian food now seems a little undeserved.
It may take a while before it can be considered “veggie friendly” (and vegans would certainly struggle), but the meat-free options are expanding. Changes are being made, and attitudes are adjusting. Embargoes may even be lifted. The wheels on this classic Cuban car are in motion, however slowly they may be turning.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/selene-nelson/where-to-find-vegetarian-_b_14140712.html
HAVANA, Jan. 12th (Reuters) – The Obama administration is ending a policy that granted residency to Cubans who arrived in the United States without visas, several congressional sources said on Thursday. Read more
HAVANA, Jan. 12th Far from the galleries of Vedado and Miramar, Máisel López fills the streets of his Havana barrio with art—specifically, portraits of neighborhood children. Lianet Hernández talks with López about his Colosos portraits and their impact, his dedication to working in grisaille, Read more
HAVANA, Jan. 12th The classic 1950s cars on the streets of Havana are much admired by foreigners, yet the reality for most Cubans is a lot more mundane. For them, owning a car – any car – remains a dream, albeit one which has been Read more
HAVANA, Jan. 12th In 2016, 74 percent more US citizens took advantage of improved bilateral ties to visit Cuba, compared to the year before, the Cuban government announced on Wednesday.
The officla dada shows that in 2016, 284,937 Americans visited Cuba, for a 74 percent Read more
HAVANA, Jan. 12th Latin music star Enrique Iglesias is in Havana, Cuba filming his new music video for his single “Súbeme la Radio”. The 41-year-old singer shared the news in an Instagram video posted Tuesday as he prepared to fly Read more
HAVANA, Jan. 9th (Reuters) Cuba and the United States agreed on Monday to jointly prevent, contain and clean up oil and other toxic spills in the Gulf of Mexico, as they rush to Read more
HAVANA, Ja. 9th (Reuters) Cubans are adept at inventing ways to earn cash but Felix Guirola stands – or rather, cycles – head and shoulders above them.
The handyman, who loves heights, provides advertising space for companies on Read more
HAVANA, Jan. 8th Cuban Interior Minister Carlos Fernandez Gondin has died here after a “chronic illness”, authorities said on Sunday. He was 78.
According to his will, Fernandez Gondin, who died on Saturday, will be cremated, and his ashes will be honoured at the Pantheon of Veterans in Read more
HAVANA, Ja. 6th For the first time in decades, passengers can board a regularly scheduled U.S. commercial flight between Los Angeles and Havana.
Alaskan Airlines Flight Read more
A man prepares artisanal charcoal at a farm on the outskirts of Havana, Cuba, Thursday, Jan. 5, 2017. Artisanal charcoal will become the first Cuban export to the U.S. this month under a new deal between the Cuban government and Read more
HAVANA, Jan 5th The tourism industry could contribute some 3 billion dollars to Cuban coffers, thanks to the 4 million visitors Cuba received in 2016, according to an expert.
Jose Luis Rodriguez, advisor at the Research Center Read more
HAVANA, Jan. 4th Alaska Airlines launches a daily flight Thursday morning from the West Coast to Havana. The new service comes as the Obama administration’s opening to Cuba gives way to an uncertain future.
U.S. airlines Read more
HAVANA, Jan. 4th Between Fidel Castro’s death and the new American president, it’s hard to know what’s next for U.S.-Cuba relations. But partnerships are already underway, including one involving Cuba’s first independent video Read more
HAVANA, Jan 4 (BBC) As Cuba slowly opens up its economy to the rest of the world, more and more Cubans are learning English. The Cuban government has made proficiency in English a requirement for all high school and university Read more
HAVANA, Jan. 3th (Reuters) Priests from Cuba’s Afro-Cuban religion forecast a prosperous 2017 in their New Year’s prophecy and told Cubans to be hopeful despite the Read more
HAVANA, Jan 3 (Financial Times) It is a sultry Wednesday afternoon in Havana and in a town square on the corner of 21st and H Streets, a man smokes a cigar under a tree, Read more
HAVANA,Jan. 2th (Reuters) Cuba on Monday paraded troops and hundreds of thousands of citizens through its emblematic Revolution Square in a traditional show of nationalist fighting spirit as it faces a tough political and Read more
HAVANA, Jan. 1th Havana is no longer a daydream for cruisers.
While Carnival Corp.’s newest brand, Fathom, launched “social impact” cruises to Cuba last spring, the more mainstream lines have been in a holding pattern. The wait is now over for many of them. Read more
HAVANA,Dec. 31 (AFP) – Cuba welcomed a record four million tourists in 2016, up 13 per cent over last year, with much of the increase thanks to a crush of visitors from the US and Europe, officials said on Saturday (Dec 31).
Havana’s Ministry of Tourism said in a statement published in the Read more
HAVANA,Dec. 30th Callejón de Hamel (Hamel Alley) — a vibrant street in the Cayo Hueso neighborhood of Central Havana devoted to Afro-Cuban culture —is where Elier Lima first fell in love with dance. Read more
HAVANA, Dec. 30th Many U.S. residents have been itching to get to Cuba, and now they can. Since President Barak Obama lifted various travel and commerce sanctions against the Cuba, Americans have been Read more
HAVANA, Dec.30th (Reuters) Downtown Havana resident Margarita Marquez says she received a special Christmas gift this year: web access at home, a rarity in a country with one of the lowest internet penetration rates in the world. Read more
HAVANA, Dec. 29th The Florida Aquarium’s joint research with the National Aquarium of Cuba on coral reef restoration ended on a scientific high in 2016. Read more
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